in progress A son of Danes and northern Germans, he married Selma Olive Peterson, daughter of Swedish immigrants. His own parents immigrated, married in Nebraska, the groom listed as properly spelled as Berndt Greisen for the groom. The two then moved to the "driftless area" of northeast Iowa, not flat like the rest, but with hills, near the Mississippi. His father Berndt died before James was five, while his younger brother was still toddling. Their mother, Christina, then remarried, in 1899, her maiden name properly spelled then as Peetz (a German-Danish version of Peterson). Showing her family had been bilingual, another record of the marriage rendered it as Pietz (Slavic version of Peterson, either Polish or Bohemian Czech). Both versions were pronounced as Pitts, a the name rhymed with bits, not beets.
Her new spouse was neighbor George Christensen, much older, a widower with four or five adult children still living. The long-lived George and Christina farmed, as "just about everyone" seemed to do back then. They were in a first census together in 1900 at Liberty Township, in Iowa's Buchanan County. By 1915's state census, they had moved to the next township south, to Cono Township, named for a native chief almost everyone had liked. Like their 1905 at Liberty, their 1915 at Cono, both state censuses confirmed all four had turned Baptist. His censuses 1895 to 1915 were were found at FamilySearch.org, mainly by searching for Buchanan County, but, when that did not work for Cono, searching for a post office in the next county called Walker.
The elders would remember whatever they'd been taught as Lutherans, having confirmation records back in Denmark to confirm they agrees with all they'd been taught since infant baptism. However, Christina's sons knew only the Baptist faith, except whatever was "taught by example" of minister Hans Christian Andersen's tales, as his older childrens' stories often had moral twists, unexpected, but wise (the little matchgirl did not survive, but would have if people had been kinder; the little mermaid made a sacrifice for the one she loved, not seen in the Disney version for younger children). These were appreciated by both other faiths.
Their courthouse and early mailing address were at Independence, in Buchaanan County, where he enlisted for World War I with the Army Engineers. His military records called Independence his birth place, maybe as that county seat kept records proving residence, if not birth. Liberty Twp and Independence wotul have been true for brother Ben, as they lived nowhere else. However, he could not remember Buchanan's full name, so guessed from what he hear said,"'Chanan County", Danes known to drop letters. The clerk wrote Cannon County, Iowa, as birthplace, when Ben did the required registration for the WW I draft from Crow Wing County, saying he was self-employed, so not merely working for George at their St Mathias farm.
James and Ben's parents and the neighboring Christensens began as the usual Baltic Sea Lutherans, but had no Lutheran church nearby, when at Liberty and Cono. They joined the Nielson family and other neighbors at the Danish Baptist in Sec. 20 of Liberty Twp.
Stepfather George had forty acres shown on a plat map of 1886. His acres were at the top of the next square-mile southward of the church, Between two waterways, one deep, his location might have been higher-up on a rolling ridgetop or blufftop. if up in a tree a child might see land sloping down to Pine Creek, to the north, but if looking south,there might have been a more dramatic drop to the Wapsi River. (Wahpsi was short for Wapsipinicon, meaning "wild artichokes", a root vegetable that grew in the waters).
The maps in an 1886 compiling for Buchanan County showed the "Bap. Ch" northward, next to a saw mill, presumably powered by waters flowing rapidly into Pine Creek, which then flowed into the Wapsi. Just west of the church was school No. 5, so George's main farm was within summertime walking distance of some key things, the boys able to go to through Grade 8, if the school was typical, tax payers valuing education so covering more.
Judging from the map and what Findagrave says about Pine Creek Cemetery, aka Danish Baptist cemetery, the woman owning land by the sawmill and church donated some for the cemetery, where James' father, Berndt the sr., by his burial date, become one of the first 15 or 20 people buried, according to old records. These were seen in two databases, the nature of the 'off items" would be expected if based on cemetery walks, missing dates, half-spellings, trying to decipher broken or faded markers. Such walks were meant to make up for no birth or death records. When unsure of spellings, the record might rely on detecting who was in the 1895 Census or old tax records, then missing later, but with families still local, so borrowing their latest spelling (Berndt's 1895 census sounded out Grieisen as Grisen, later sound-it-outs for his sons included Grayson, heard as Gryson, the sons' 1900, their first with George present, used proper spellings). No marker is easily found now.
DANISH CHURCH. Other people would have been welcome to attend. However, putting Danish in the name meant that that the old language was spoken, "so the grandmothers could understand".
TRI-ETHNIC? His mother was technically German, but she was raised in a tri-ethnic place. Several cultures joined and overlapped along the Baltic Sea, where it spilled into the North Sea. Most Baltic seaside cities located around the transition point had been in the old Hanseatic league, agreeing to entering each others' ports. People ere accustomed to being allowed to enter foreign ports. She may or would have understood Danish and German and bits of Slavic languages, enough to present her maiden surname in different languages, Peetz acceptable to Danes, Pietz, to Slavicx, Puetz to those Germans they encounterd when in Minnesota, so her sons put that in her obituary, all pronounced as Pitts.
Instead of being at peace, Hanseatic-style, her parents were forced to raise her in a time of repeated warring. Her parents' church of infant baptism and her own had been at Riesbey, under Denmark at their births. It turned Prussian after her birth, when their region of Schleswig was invaded and then captured, to enlarge the "Prussian empire". Spouse Berndt came from Jutland , a part that remained in Denmark. They may have gone to Nebraska alone or with family, unclear, but married there in 1892, and came alone, except that an Anna age 18, with Berndt's surname, lived with them in Iowa in 1895..
His younger brother, named Berndt, for their father, usually went by Ben. Their mother and stepfather "saw to it" that adult children in both families would have farmland, by moving northward with some of George's sons.
By moving, they lost their old Danish neighbors and gained new, many Swedish. A side effect? Changes in name spellings. A second side effect, delayed? Descendants knowing only new spellings then had trouble finding old records.
The Mississippi River, wide and navigable before, shrank to its headwaters near their new location. It was so narrow to the north, you could step across it. They were away from the driftless area's hills, in the middle of northern Minnesota's flatter "lake country", lots of good fishing, with the native Ojibway/Chippewas harvesting wild rice and wild blueberries in Cass and Itasca Counties, to their northwest, Brainerd not far east.
The Northern Pacific, out of Chicago, crossed the now narrow Mississippi at Brainerd, on its way through the Dakotas to Idaho and then Washington state. For a time, the rail business had a track-building and car-building center in Brainerd. It "wound down" around 1900, but provided work before then, and shipped products later. There were people who regularly went to and fro across the Canada border, the old ox carts along the Red River of the North coming down from Manitoba replaced, by James' time, by machines crossing in North Dakota, with trains crossing between border towns, from Portal, in ND, to Estevan, in Saskatchewan, and, once threshing time arrived, big machines crossed, as well. These difficult monsters were not affordable by individual farmers, so some pooled their money and made a company to buy a machine, rented the threshers and a work team out. The temporary and seasonal crews sent along included engineers of the mechanical sort and laborers taking a break from their own farming, some wives or sisters along to help with cooking for the crews.
His brother went with the Christensens to Crow Wing County's western edge, at rural St. Mathias, their mail to be addressed to Fort Ripley. The last was a nearby town named for the old fort ruins on Morrison County's side of the line, on the way to Motley. Motley , off to the west, was smaller than Brainerd, off to the east, but it and other railroad towns offered a choice of places to shop on Friday nights, when the town stores stayed open, so the farmers could come in and shop. To offer variety, mail-order catalogs came into being. Ordered goods and machinery were freighted out from Chicago by train, local produce and livestock shipped back, passengers taken in both directions,more energy-efficient, though more time-consuming than the modern shipping by air.
He followed the Christensens and brother Ben to St. Mathias, once done with his WW I service 1918-1919. He would be head of his mother's household at St Mathias for the 1920 US Census, as stepfather George had died in 1919. James and Ben/Berndt were single then, 25ish and 23ish. They would wait a bit before marrying, to "find the right one" and "save some money first", some women thinking the same, as forced to quit work as soon as they married, even true of teachers. Both James and Ben would marry women from Crow Wing County, James finding his in Brainerd. He's buried with the former Selma Olive Peterson and her two sisters, one married, one who worked to help support her aging parents, all at her parents' cemetery in Brainerd, called Evergreen.
They were north of the Twin Cities and St Cloud, west of Lake Michigan's Duluth, all places to go for those tired of farming and needing work, or to attend college and be a teacher. Going to the Cities' Hennepin County was the choice of George's son William Christensen (born Lars, William being a translation of one of his middle names, Vilhelm).
While William Christensen went to Hennepin, Ben and James stayed in Crow Wing County, along with George's granddaughter by son John H. (George and his wife called him Hans Peder at birth, given Hans was short for Johan/Johannes, he was called John Christensen at their first noticeable Census, at Grundy, Iowa, in 1880 and at his wedding to Amelia Tompson at Black Hawk County. He shifted to John Peterson once he began having children, (one reason for doing that would be as cousins had sone so. because their shared grandfather had been a Christian Petersen or Pedersen, Chirstiansen based on the first name, not the surnames)
The granddaughter married a Quick. Carrie Ida Quick was named for an older sister who died young, with her uncle William also to name a daughter Carrie. The Danish name remembered that way may have been Karolina, with Karel another Danish variation, translated as Charles.
James and Selma farmed just inside Brainerd's city boundary. Their address of Mill Ave matched the old paper mill end of town. Her parents, Swan and Maggie, lived on the same avenue, when they listed themselves as retired dairy farmers. Looking at their answers in the 1940 Census, viewable at FamilySearch.org, it seems likely James took over their dairy farm 1935 or later. (Doing a long-term "contract-for-deed" with Selma's parents, instead of a typical bank loan, would have saved them from the old-time "balloon payments" that led to so many farm foreclosures back in the 1930s, after crop prices fell below what would have justified the heightened prices paid by a new generation of farmers had paid early in the 1920s, for their land. The contracts gave parents a retirement income, plus the in-laws' other children could receive something.)
BORN A JENS, IOWA YEARS. His father, Berndt, still living for James' first Census, a state one, in 1895, called him Jens then. Age 0, his birth was noted as in that county. The state censuses asked for parent's religion, still Lutheran then, telling us they had baptismal records "back there" naming parents, often found in the same church as siblings, with their aunts and uncles often the "godparents", so grandparents could be detected.
His father, Berndt, was hard to describe before finding this one census. He was age 39 in 1895, so, born 1846 to 1847, with Jens' mother, Christina, a decade younger.
JB, 2022
Her new spouse was neighbor George Christensen, much older, a widower with four or five adult children still living. The long-lived George and Christina farmed, as "just about everyone" seemed to do back then. They were in a first census together in 1900 at Liberty Township, in Iowa's Buchanan County. By 1915's state census, they had moved to the next township south, to Cono Township, named for a native chief almost everyone had liked. Like their 1905 at Liberty, their 1915 at Cono, both state censuses confirmed all four had turned Baptist. His censuses 1895 to 1915 were were found at FamilySearch.org, mainly by searching for Buchanan County, but, when that did not work for Cono, searching for a post office in the next county called Walker.
The elders would remember whatever they'd been taught as Lutherans, having confirmation records back in Denmark to confirm they agrees with all they'd been taught since infant baptism. However, Christina's sons knew only the Baptist faith, except whatever was "taught by example" of minister Hans Christian Andersen's tales, as his older childrens' stories often had moral twists, unexpected, but wise (the little matchgirl did not survive, but would have if people had been kinder; the little mermaid made a sacrifice for the one she loved, not seen in the Disney version for younger children). These were appreciated by both other faiths.
Their courthouse and early mailing address were at Independence, in Buchaanan County, where he enlisted for World War I with the Army Engineers. His military records called Independence his birth place, maybe as that county seat kept records proving residence, if not birth. Liberty Twp and Independence wotul have been true for brother Ben, as they lived nowhere else. However, he could not remember Buchanan's full name, so guessed from what he hear said,"'Chanan County", Danes known to drop letters. The clerk wrote Cannon County, Iowa, as birthplace, when Ben did the required registration for the WW I draft from Crow Wing County, saying he was self-employed, so not merely working for George at their St Mathias farm.
James and Ben's parents and the neighboring Christensens began as the usual Baltic Sea Lutherans, but had no Lutheran church nearby, when at Liberty and Cono. They joined the Nielson family and other neighbors at the Danish Baptist in Sec. 20 of Liberty Twp.
Stepfather George had forty acres shown on a plat map of 1886. His acres were at the top of the next square-mile southward of the church, Between two waterways, one deep, his location might have been higher-up on a rolling ridgetop or blufftop. if up in a tree a child might see land sloping down to Pine Creek, to the north, but if looking south,there might have been a more dramatic drop to the Wapsi River. (Wahpsi was short for Wapsipinicon, meaning "wild artichokes", a root vegetable that grew in the waters).
The maps in an 1886 compiling for Buchanan County showed the "Bap. Ch" northward, next to a saw mill, presumably powered by waters flowing rapidly into Pine Creek, which then flowed into the Wapsi. Just west of the church was school No. 5, so George's main farm was within summertime walking distance of some key things, the boys able to go to through Grade 8, if the school was typical, tax payers valuing education so covering more.
Judging from the map and what Findagrave says about Pine Creek Cemetery, aka Danish Baptist cemetery, the woman owning land by the sawmill and church donated some for the cemetery, where James' father, Berndt the sr., by his burial date, become one of the first 15 or 20 people buried, according to old records. These were seen in two databases, the nature of the 'off items" would be expected if based on cemetery walks, missing dates, half-spellings, trying to decipher broken or faded markers. Such walks were meant to make up for no birth or death records. When unsure of spellings, the record might rely on detecting who was in the 1895 Census or old tax records, then missing later, but with families still local, so borrowing their latest spelling (Berndt's 1895 census sounded out Grieisen as Grisen, later sound-it-outs for his sons included Grayson, heard as Gryson, the sons' 1900, their first with George present, used proper spellings). No marker is easily found now.
DANISH CHURCH. Other people would have been welcome to attend. However, putting Danish in the name meant that that the old language was spoken, "so the grandmothers could understand".
TRI-ETHNIC? His mother was technically German, but she was raised in a tri-ethnic place. Several cultures joined and overlapped along the Baltic Sea, where it spilled into the North Sea. Most Baltic seaside cities located around the transition point had been in the old Hanseatic league, agreeing to entering each others' ports. People ere accustomed to being allowed to enter foreign ports. She may or would have understood Danish and German and bits of Slavic languages, enough to present her maiden surname in different languages, Peetz acceptable to Danes, Pietz, to Slavicx, Puetz to those Germans they encounterd when in Minnesota, so her sons put that in her obituary, all pronounced as Pitts.
Instead of being at peace, Hanseatic-style, her parents were forced to raise her in a time of repeated warring. Her parents' church of infant baptism and her own had been at Riesbey, under Denmark at their births. It turned Prussian after her birth, when their region of Schleswig was invaded and then captured, to enlarge the "Prussian empire". Spouse Berndt came from Jutland , a part that remained in Denmark. They may have gone to Nebraska alone or with family, unclear, but married there in 1892, and came alone, except that an Anna age 18, with Berndt's surname, lived with them in Iowa in 1895..
His younger brother, named Berndt, for their father, usually went by Ben. Their mother and stepfather "saw to it" that adult children in both families would have farmland, by moving northward with some of George's sons.
By moving, they lost their old Danish neighbors and gained new, many Swedish. A side effect? Changes in name spellings. A second side effect, delayed? Descendants knowing only new spellings then had trouble finding old records.
The Mississippi River, wide and navigable before, shrank to its headwaters near their new location. It was so narrow to the north, you could step across it. They were away from the driftless area's hills, in the middle of northern Minnesota's flatter "lake country", lots of good fishing, with the native Ojibway/Chippewas harvesting wild rice and wild blueberries in Cass and Itasca Counties, to their northwest, Brainerd not far east.
The Northern Pacific, out of Chicago, crossed the now narrow Mississippi at Brainerd, on its way through the Dakotas to Idaho and then Washington state. For a time, the rail business had a track-building and car-building center in Brainerd. It "wound down" around 1900, but provided work before then, and shipped products later. There were people who regularly went to and fro across the Canada border, the old ox carts along the Red River of the North coming down from Manitoba replaced, by James' time, by machines crossing in North Dakota, with trains crossing between border towns, from Portal, in ND, to Estevan, in Saskatchewan, and, once threshing time arrived, big machines crossed, as well. These difficult monsters were not affordable by individual farmers, so some pooled their money and made a company to buy a machine, rented the threshers and a work team out. The temporary and seasonal crews sent along included engineers of the mechanical sort and laborers taking a break from their own farming, some wives or sisters along to help with cooking for the crews.
His brother went with the Christensens to Crow Wing County's western edge, at rural St. Mathias, their mail to be addressed to Fort Ripley. The last was a nearby town named for the old fort ruins on Morrison County's side of the line, on the way to Motley. Motley , off to the west, was smaller than Brainerd, off to the east, but it and other railroad towns offered a choice of places to shop on Friday nights, when the town stores stayed open, so the farmers could come in and shop. To offer variety, mail-order catalogs came into being. Ordered goods and machinery were freighted out from Chicago by train, local produce and livestock shipped back, passengers taken in both directions,more energy-efficient, though more time-consuming than the modern shipping by air.
He followed the Christensens and brother Ben to St. Mathias, once done with his WW I service 1918-1919. He would be head of his mother's household at St Mathias for the 1920 US Census, as stepfather George had died in 1919. James and Ben/Berndt were single then, 25ish and 23ish. They would wait a bit before marrying, to "find the right one" and "save some money first", some women thinking the same, as forced to quit work as soon as they married, even true of teachers. Both James and Ben would marry women from Crow Wing County, James finding his in Brainerd. He's buried with the former Selma Olive Peterson and her two sisters, one married, one who worked to help support her aging parents, all at her parents' cemetery in Brainerd, called Evergreen.
They were north of the Twin Cities and St Cloud, west of Lake Michigan's Duluth, all places to go for those tired of farming and needing work, or to attend college and be a teacher. Going to the Cities' Hennepin County was the choice of George's son William Christensen (born Lars, William being a translation of one of his middle names, Vilhelm).
While William Christensen went to Hennepin, Ben and James stayed in Crow Wing County, along with George's granddaughter by son John H. (George and his wife called him Hans Peder at birth, given Hans was short for Johan/Johannes, he was called John Christensen at their first noticeable Census, at Grundy, Iowa, in 1880 and at his wedding to Amelia Tompson at Black Hawk County. He shifted to John Peterson once he began having children, (one reason for doing that would be as cousins had sone so. because their shared grandfather had been a Christian Petersen or Pedersen, Chirstiansen based on the first name, not the surnames)
The granddaughter married a Quick. Carrie Ida Quick was named for an older sister who died young, with her uncle William also to name a daughter Carrie. The Danish name remembered that way may have been Karolina, with Karel another Danish variation, translated as Charles.
James and Selma farmed just inside Brainerd's city boundary. Their address of Mill Ave matched the old paper mill end of town. Her parents, Swan and Maggie, lived on the same avenue, when they listed themselves as retired dairy farmers. Looking at their answers in the 1940 Census, viewable at FamilySearch.org, it seems likely James took over their dairy farm 1935 or later. (Doing a long-term "contract-for-deed" with Selma's parents, instead of a typical bank loan, would have saved them from the old-time "balloon payments" that led to so many farm foreclosures back in the 1930s, after crop prices fell below what would have justified the heightened prices paid by a new generation of farmers had paid early in the 1920s, for their land. The contracts gave parents a retirement income, plus the in-laws' other children could receive something.)
BORN A JENS, IOWA YEARS. His father, Berndt, still living for James' first Census, a state one, in 1895, called him Jens then. Age 0, his birth was noted as in that county. The state censuses asked for parent's religion, still Lutheran then, telling us they had baptismal records "back there" naming parents, often found in the same church as siblings, with their aunts and uncles often the "godparents", so grandparents could be detected.
His father, Berndt, was hard to describe before finding this one census. He was age 39 in 1895, so, born 1846 to 1847, with Jens' mother, Christina, a decade younger.
JB, 2022
in progress A son of Danes and northern Germans, he married Selma Olive Peterson, daughter of Swedish immigrants. His own parents immigrated, married in Nebraska, the groom listed as properly spelled as Berndt Greisen for the groom. The two then moved to the "driftless area" of northeast Iowa, not flat like the rest, but with hills, near the Mississippi. His father Berndt died before James was five, while his younger brother was still toddling. Their mother, Christina, then remarried, in 1899, her maiden name properly spelled then as Peetz (a German-Danish version of Peterson). Showing her family had been bilingual, another record of the marriage rendered it as Pietz (Slavic version of Peterson, either Polish or Bohemian Czech). Both versions were pronounced as Pitts, a the name rhymed with bits, not beets.
Her new spouse was neighbor George Christensen, much older, a widower with four or five adult children still living. The long-lived George and Christina farmed, as "just about everyone" seemed to do back then. They were in a first census together in 1900 at Liberty Township, in Iowa's Buchanan County. By 1915's state census, they had moved to the next township south, to Cono Township, named for a native chief almost everyone had liked. Like their 1905 at Liberty, their 1915 at Cono, both state censuses confirmed all four had turned Baptist. His censuses 1895 to 1915 were were found at FamilySearch.org, mainly by searching for Buchanan County, but, when that did not work for Cono, searching for a post office in the next county called Walker.
The elders would remember whatever they'd been taught as Lutherans, having confirmation records back in Denmark to confirm they agrees with all they'd been taught since infant baptism. However, Christina's sons knew only the Baptist faith, except whatever was "taught by example" of minister Hans Christian Andersen's tales, as his older childrens' stories often had moral twists, unexpected, but wise (the little matchgirl did not survive, but would have if people had been kinder; the little mermaid made a sacrifice for the one she loved, not seen in the Disney version for younger children). These were appreciated by both other faiths.
Their courthouse and early mailing address were at Independence, in Buchaanan County, where he enlisted for World War I with the Army Engineers. His military records called Independence his birth place, maybe as that county seat kept records proving residence, if not birth. Liberty Twp and Independence wotul have been true for brother Ben, as they lived nowhere else. However, he could not remember Buchanan's full name, so guessed from what he hear said,"'Chanan County", Danes known to drop letters. The clerk wrote Cannon County, Iowa, as birthplace, when Ben did the required registration for the WW I draft from Crow Wing County, saying he was self-employed, so not merely working for George at their St Mathias farm.
James and Ben's parents and the neighboring Christensens began as the usual Baltic Sea Lutherans, but had no Lutheran church nearby, when at Liberty and Cono. They joined the Nielson family and other neighbors at the Danish Baptist in Sec. 20 of Liberty Twp.
Stepfather George had forty acres shown on a plat map of 1886. His acres were at the top of the next square-mile southward of the church, Between two waterways, one deep, his location might have been higher-up on a rolling ridgetop or blufftop. if up in a tree a child might see land sloping down to Pine Creek, to the north, but if looking south,there might have been a more dramatic drop to the Wapsi River. (Wahpsi was short for Wapsipinicon, meaning "wild artichokes", a root vegetable that grew in the waters).
The maps in an 1886 compiling for Buchanan County showed the "Bap. Ch" northward, next to a saw mill, presumably powered by waters flowing rapidly into Pine Creek, which then flowed into the Wapsi. Just west of the church was school No. 5, so George's main farm was within summertime walking distance of some key things, the boys able to go to through Grade 8, if the school was typical, tax payers valuing education so covering more.
Judging from the map and what Findagrave says about Pine Creek Cemetery, aka Danish Baptist cemetery, the woman owning land by the sawmill and church donated some for the cemetery, where James' father, Berndt the sr., by his burial date, become one of the first 15 or 20 people buried, according to old records. These were seen in two databases, the nature of the 'off items" would be expected if based on cemetery walks, missing dates, half-spellings, trying to decipher broken or faded markers. Such walks were meant to make up for no birth or death records. When unsure of spellings, the record might rely on detecting who was in the 1895 Census or old tax records, then missing later, but with families still local, so borrowing their latest spelling (Berndt's 1895 census sounded out Grieisen as Grisen, later sound-it-outs for his sons included Grayson, heard as Gryson, the sons' 1900, their first with George present, used proper spellings). No marker is easily found now.
DANISH CHURCH. Other people would have been welcome to attend. However, putting Danish in the name meant that that the old language was spoken, "so the grandmothers could understand".
TRI-ETHNIC? His mother was technically German, but she was raised in a tri-ethnic place. Several cultures joined and overlapped along the Baltic Sea, where it spilled into the North Sea. Most Baltic seaside cities located around the transition point had been in the old Hanseatic league, agreeing to entering each others' ports. People ere accustomed to being allowed to enter foreign ports. She may or would have understood Danish and German and bits of Slavic languages, enough to present her maiden surname in different languages, Peetz acceptable to Danes, Pietz, to Slavicx, Puetz to those Germans they encounterd when in Minnesota, so her sons put that in her obituary, all pronounced as Pitts.
Instead of being at peace, Hanseatic-style, her parents were forced to raise her in a time of repeated warring. Her parents' church of infant baptism and her own had been at Riesbey, under Denmark at their births. It turned Prussian after her birth, when their region of Schleswig was invaded and then captured, to enlarge the "Prussian empire". Spouse Berndt came from Jutland , a part that remained in Denmark. They may have gone to Nebraska alone or with family, unclear, but married there in 1892, and came alone, except that an Anna age 18, with Berndt's surname, lived with them in Iowa in 1895..
His younger brother, named Berndt, for their father, usually went by Ben. Their mother and stepfather "saw to it" that adult children in both families would have farmland, by moving northward with some of George's sons.
By moving, they lost their old Danish neighbors and gained new, many Swedish. A side effect? Changes in name spellings. A second side effect, delayed? Descendants knowing only new spellings then had trouble finding old records.
The Mississippi River, wide and navigable before, shrank to its headwaters near their new location. It was so narrow to the north, you could step across it. They were away from the driftless area's hills, in the middle of northern Minnesota's flatter "lake country", lots of good fishing, with the native Ojibway/Chippewas harvesting wild rice and wild blueberries in Cass and Itasca Counties, to their northwest, Brainerd not far east.
The Northern Pacific, out of Chicago, crossed the now narrow Mississippi at Brainerd, on its way through the Dakotas to Idaho and then Washington state. For a time, the rail business had a track-building and car-building center in Brainerd. It "wound down" around 1900, but provided work before then, and shipped products later. There were people who regularly went to and fro across the Canada border, the old ox carts along the Red River of the North coming down from Manitoba replaced, by James' time, by machines crossing in North Dakota, with trains crossing between border towns, from Portal, in ND, to Estevan, in Saskatchewan, and, once threshing time arrived, big machines crossed, as well. These difficult monsters were not affordable by individual farmers, so some pooled their money and made a company to buy a machine, rented the threshers and a work team out. The temporary and seasonal crews sent along included engineers of the mechanical sort and laborers taking a break from their own farming, some wives or sisters along to help with cooking for the crews.
His brother went with the Christensens to Crow Wing County's western edge, at rural St. Mathias, their mail to be addressed to Fort Ripley. The last was a nearby town named for the old fort ruins on Morrison County's side of the line, on the way to Motley. Motley , off to the west, was smaller than Brainerd, off to the east, but it and other railroad towns offered a choice of places to shop on Friday nights, when the town stores stayed open, so the farmers could come in and shop. To offer variety, mail-order catalogs came into being. Ordered goods and machinery were freighted out from Chicago by train, local produce and livestock shipped back, passengers taken in both directions,more energy-efficient, though more time-consuming than the modern shipping by air.
He followed the Christensens and brother Ben to St. Mathias, once done with his WW I service 1918-1919. He would be head of his mother's household at St Mathias for the 1920 US Census, as stepfather George had died in 1919. James and Ben/Berndt were single then, 25ish and 23ish. They would wait a bit before marrying, to "find the right one" and "save some money first", some women thinking the same, as forced to quit work as soon as they married, even true of teachers. Both James and Ben would marry women from Crow Wing County, James finding his in Brainerd. He's buried with the former Selma Olive Peterson and her two sisters, one married, one who worked to help support her aging parents, all at her parents' cemetery in Brainerd, called Evergreen.
They were north of the Twin Cities and St Cloud, west of Lake Michigan's Duluth, all places to go for those tired of farming and needing work, or to attend college and be a teacher. Going to the Cities' Hennepin County was the choice of George's son William Christensen (born Lars, William being a translation of one of his middle names, Vilhelm).
While William Christensen went to Hennepin, Ben and James stayed in Crow Wing County, along with George's granddaughter by son John H. (George and his wife called him Hans Peder at birth, given Hans was short for Johan/Johannes, he was called John Christensen at their first noticeable Census, at Grundy, Iowa, in 1880 and at his wedding to Amelia Tompson at Black Hawk County. He shifted to John Peterson once he began having children, (one reason for doing that would be as cousins had sone so. because their shared grandfather had been a Christian Petersen or Pedersen, Chirstiansen based on the first name, not the surnames)
The granddaughter married a Quick. Carrie Ida Quick was named for an older sister who died young, with her uncle William also to name a daughter Carrie. The Danish name remembered that way may have been Karolina, with Karel another Danish variation, translated as Charles.
James and Selma farmed just inside Brainerd's city boundary. Their address of Mill Ave matched the old paper mill end of town. Her parents, Swan and Maggie, lived on the same avenue, when they listed themselves as retired dairy farmers. Looking at their answers in the 1940 Census, viewable at FamilySearch.org, it seems likely James took over their dairy farm 1935 or later. (Doing a long-term "contract-for-deed" with Selma's parents, instead of a typical bank loan, would have saved them from the old-time "balloon payments" that led to so many farm foreclosures back in the 1930s, after crop prices fell below what would have justified the heightened prices paid by a new generation of farmers had paid early in the 1920s, for their land. The contracts gave parents a retirement income, plus the in-laws' other children could receive something.)
BORN A JENS, IOWA YEARS. His father, Berndt, still living for James' first Census, a state one, in 1895, called him Jens then. Age 0, his birth was noted as in that county. The state censuses asked for parent's religion, still Lutheran then, telling us they had baptismal records "back there" naming parents, often found in the same church as siblings, with their aunts and uncles often the "godparents", so grandparents could be detected.
His father, Berndt, was hard to describe before finding this one census. He was age 39 in 1895, so, born 1846 to 1847, with Jens' mother, Christina, a decade younger.
JB, 2022
Her new spouse was neighbor George Christensen, much older, a widower with four or five adult children still living. The long-lived George and Christina farmed, as "just about everyone" seemed to do back then. They were in a first census together in 1900 at Liberty Township, in Iowa's Buchanan County. By 1915's state census, they had moved to the next township south, to Cono Township, named for a native chief almost everyone had liked. Like their 1905 at Liberty, their 1915 at Cono, both state censuses confirmed all four had turned Baptist. His censuses 1895 to 1915 were were found at FamilySearch.org, mainly by searching for Buchanan County, but, when that did not work for Cono, searching for a post office in the next county called Walker.
The elders would remember whatever they'd been taught as Lutherans, having confirmation records back in Denmark to confirm they agrees with all they'd been taught since infant baptism. However, Christina's sons knew only the Baptist faith, except whatever was "taught by example" of minister Hans Christian Andersen's tales, as his older childrens' stories often had moral twists, unexpected, but wise (the little matchgirl did not survive, but would have if people had been kinder; the little mermaid made a sacrifice for the one she loved, not seen in the Disney version for younger children). These were appreciated by both other faiths.
Their courthouse and early mailing address were at Independence, in Buchaanan County, where he enlisted for World War I with the Army Engineers. His military records called Independence his birth place, maybe as that county seat kept records proving residence, if not birth. Liberty Twp and Independence wotul have been true for brother Ben, as they lived nowhere else. However, he could not remember Buchanan's full name, so guessed from what he hear said,"'Chanan County", Danes known to drop letters. The clerk wrote Cannon County, Iowa, as birthplace, when Ben did the required registration for the WW I draft from Crow Wing County, saying he was self-employed, so not merely working for George at their St Mathias farm.
James and Ben's parents and the neighboring Christensens began as the usual Baltic Sea Lutherans, but had no Lutheran church nearby, when at Liberty and Cono. They joined the Nielson family and other neighbors at the Danish Baptist in Sec. 20 of Liberty Twp.
Stepfather George had forty acres shown on a plat map of 1886. His acres were at the top of the next square-mile southward of the church, Between two waterways, one deep, his location might have been higher-up on a rolling ridgetop or blufftop. if up in a tree a child might see land sloping down to Pine Creek, to the north, but if looking south,there might have been a more dramatic drop to the Wapsi River. (Wahpsi was short for Wapsipinicon, meaning "wild artichokes", a root vegetable that grew in the waters).
The maps in an 1886 compiling for Buchanan County showed the "Bap. Ch" northward, next to a saw mill, presumably powered by waters flowing rapidly into Pine Creek, which then flowed into the Wapsi. Just west of the church was school No. 5, so George's main farm was within summertime walking distance of some key things, the boys able to go to through Grade 8, if the school was typical, tax payers valuing education so covering more.
Judging from the map and what Findagrave says about Pine Creek Cemetery, aka Danish Baptist cemetery, the woman owning land by the sawmill and church donated some for the cemetery, where James' father, Berndt the sr., by his burial date, become one of the first 15 or 20 people buried, according to old records. These were seen in two databases, the nature of the 'off items" would be expected if based on cemetery walks, missing dates, half-spellings, trying to decipher broken or faded markers. Such walks were meant to make up for no birth or death records. When unsure of spellings, the record might rely on detecting who was in the 1895 Census or old tax records, then missing later, but with families still local, so borrowing their latest spelling (Berndt's 1895 census sounded out Grieisen as Grisen, later sound-it-outs for his sons included Grayson, heard as Gryson, the sons' 1900, their first with George present, used proper spellings). No marker is easily found now.
DANISH CHURCH. Other people would have been welcome to attend. However, putting Danish in the name meant that that the old language was spoken, "so the grandmothers could understand".
TRI-ETHNIC? His mother was technically German, but she was raised in a tri-ethnic place. Several cultures joined and overlapped along the Baltic Sea, where it spilled into the North Sea. Most Baltic seaside cities located around the transition point had been in the old Hanseatic league, agreeing to entering each others' ports. People ere accustomed to being allowed to enter foreign ports. She may or would have understood Danish and German and bits of Slavic languages, enough to present her maiden surname in different languages, Peetz acceptable to Danes, Pietz, to Slavicx, Puetz to those Germans they encounterd when in Minnesota, so her sons put that in her obituary, all pronounced as Pitts.
Instead of being at peace, Hanseatic-style, her parents were forced to raise her in a time of repeated warring. Her parents' church of infant baptism and her own had been at Riesbey, under Denmark at their births. It turned Prussian after her birth, when their region of Schleswig was invaded and then captured, to enlarge the "Prussian empire". Spouse Berndt came from Jutland , a part that remained in Denmark. They may have gone to Nebraska alone or with family, unclear, but married there in 1892, and came alone, except that an Anna age 18, with Berndt's surname, lived with them in Iowa in 1895..
His younger brother, named Berndt, for their father, usually went by Ben. Their mother and stepfather "saw to it" that adult children in both families would have farmland, by moving northward with some of George's sons.
By moving, they lost their old Danish neighbors and gained new, many Swedish. A side effect? Changes in name spellings. A second side effect, delayed? Descendants knowing only new spellings then had trouble finding old records.
The Mississippi River, wide and navigable before, shrank to its headwaters near their new location. It was so narrow to the north, you could step across it. They were away from the driftless area's hills, in the middle of northern Minnesota's flatter "lake country", lots of good fishing, with the native Ojibway/Chippewas harvesting wild rice and wild blueberries in Cass and Itasca Counties, to their northwest, Brainerd not far east.
The Northern Pacific, out of Chicago, crossed the now narrow Mississippi at Brainerd, on its way through the Dakotas to Idaho and then Washington state. For a time, the rail business had a track-building and car-building center in Brainerd. It "wound down" around 1900, but provided work before then, and shipped products later. There were people who regularly went to and fro across the Canada border, the old ox carts along the Red River of the North coming down from Manitoba replaced, by James' time, by machines crossing in North Dakota, with trains crossing between border towns, from Portal, in ND, to Estevan, in Saskatchewan, and, once threshing time arrived, big machines crossed, as well. These difficult monsters were not affordable by individual farmers, so some pooled their money and made a company to buy a machine, rented the threshers and a work team out. The temporary and seasonal crews sent along included engineers of the mechanical sort and laborers taking a break from their own farming, some wives or sisters along to help with cooking for the crews.
His brother went with the Christensens to Crow Wing County's western edge, at rural St. Mathias, their mail to be addressed to Fort Ripley. The last was a nearby town named for the old fort ruins on Morrison County's side of the line, on the way to Motley. Motley , off to the west, was smaller than Brainerd, off to the east, but it and other railroad towns offered a choice of places to shop on Friday nights, when the town stores stayed open, so the farmers could come in and shop. To offer variety, mail-order catalogs came into being. Ordered goods and machinery were freighted out from Chicago by train, local produce and livestock shipped back, passengers taken in both directions,more energy-efficient, though more time-consuming than the modern shipping by air.
He followed the Christensens and brother Ben to St. Mathias, once done with his WW I service 1918-1919. He would be head of his mother's household at St Mathias for the 1920 US Census, as stepfather George had died in 1919. James and Ben/Berndt were single then, 25ish and 23ish. They would wait a bit before marrying, to "find the right one" and "save some money first", some women thinking the same, as forced to quit work as soon as they married, even true of teachers. Both James and Ben would marry women from Crow Wing County, James finding his in Brainerd. He's buried with the former Selma Olive Peterson and her two sisters, one married, one who worked to help support her aging parents, all at her parents' cemetery in Brainerd, called Evergreen.
They were north of the Twin Cities and St Cloud, west of Lake Michigan's Duluth, all places to go for those tired of farming and needing work, or to attend college and be a teacher. Going to the Cities' Hennepin County was the choice of George's son William Christensen (born Lars, William being a translation of one of his middle names, Vilhelm).
While William Christensen went to Hennepin, Ben and James stayed in Crow Wing County, along with George's granddaughter by son John H. (George and his wife called him Hans Peder at birth, given Hans was short for Johan/Johannes, he was called John Christensen at their first noticeable Census, at Grundy, Iowa, in 1880 and at his wedding to Amelia Tompson at Black Hawk County. He shifted to John Peterson once he began having children, (one reason for doing that would be as cousins had sone so. because their shared grandfather had been a Christian Petersen or Pedersen, Chirstiansen based on the first name, not the surnames)
The granddaughter married a Quick. Carrie Ida Quick was named for an older sister who died young, with her uncle William also to name a daughter Carrie. The Danish name remembered that way may have been Karolina, with Karel another Danish variation, translated as Charles.
James and Selma farmed just inside Brainerd's city boundary. Their address of Mill Ave matched the old paper mill end of town. Her parents, Swan and Maggie, lived on the same avenue, when they listed themselves as retired dairy farmers. Looking at their answers in the 1940 Census, viewable at FamilySearch.org, it seems likely James took over their dairy farm 1935 or later. (Doing a long-term "contract-for-deed" with Selma's parents, instead of a typical bank loan, would have saved them from the old-time "balloon payments" that led to so many farm foreclosures back in the 1930s, after crop prices fell below what would have justified the heightened prices paid by a new generation of farmers had paid early in the 1920s, for their land. The contracts gave parents a retirement income, plus the in-laws' other children could receive something.)
BORN A JENS, IOWA YEARS. His father, Berndt, still living for James' first Census, a state one, in 1895, called him Jens then. Age 0, his birth was noted as in that county. The state censuses asked for parent's religion, still Lutheran then, telling us they had baptismal records "back there" naming parents, often found in the same church as siblings, with their aunts and uncles often the "godparents", so grandparents could be detected.
His father, Berndt, was hard to describe before finding this one census. He was age 39 in 1895, so, born 1846 to 1847, with Jens' mother, Christina, a decade younger.
JB, 2022
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